(11-12-2013 03:06 PM)Dom Wrote: I hardly think that everyone in the human race but Noah was evil.

I understand this. But that is what Prophet says.

(11-12-2013 03:08 PM)childeye Wrote: And what is this about Jesus saving the people from dying in the flood? Never heard that before, but then I haven't read the bible in many decades. Maybe I missed something.

Yes, you have missed something.
Bible(NT) says that because Adam all people die but because of Jesus all people will live again.
Bible (NT and OT)says that those who are in prison(hell/dead) will be free. And Bible(NT) says that Jesus visited them and preached Gospel to them.
Many of those people never heard about Messiah.

English is not my native language. that awkward moment between the Premortal Existence and your Resurrection

(11-12-2013 04:07 PM)Alla Wrote: I assume it has something to do with this: they didn't have blood. Only mortals have blood.

Where does it say this in the bible?

It doesn't say directly but you may see this from the Bible:
Why Adam and Eve were not mortal before fall? According to the Bible death entered because of the sin. So if Adam didn't sin he would not die. It calls IMMORTALITY.
Adam was created in the image and likeness of God and he did NOT have earthly parents(was not created in the image of men/flesh and blood). God has no blood.
How do we know this? NO flesh and BLOOD can inherit or be in the kingdom of God.(See 1Cor 15:50)
By having blood man became mortal.
There are revelations from God about this(Adam and Eve didn't have blood before Fall) but they are not written by biblical prophets.

English is not my native language. that awkward moment between the Premortal Existence and your Resurrection

(11-12-2013 11:38 AM)childeye Wrote: Your post is a very concise appraisal except in (4) you end with what in (2) you had appeared to imply you would "leave it aside".

I would like to answer all of it. The curses you describe are not God's desire to fall upon mankind. They are the foreseen consequences of distrusting God which preceded and accomplished the act of eating of the knowledge of good and evil. The reason the curses are visited upon all of mankind for generations is so that the lesson to be learned is experienced by mankind as a whole. That is why the term "Adam" in scripture refers to all of humanity as is seen in the New Testament.

It may seem unfair to us, but the same thing that occurred to Adam would eventually occur to all of mankind in some form or another. That is that at some point in time every person would fall victim to a vanity that wonders at God's integrity in His intentions towards His creation and the Holiness of His Character. In the end however, because this is all expected according to God's wisdom and foreknowledge, it is just. This is seen by God paying the price for man's sin through the image of His self, seen as the Christ, so that all men can be gathered up through mercy. In short, God knew we could not help but take Him for granted.

My objection in #2 was that Eve was punished more harshly than Adam, and that is what I promised to leave aside on the grounds that Eve might be viewed to have incurred a harsher punishment than Adam through the role she played. My objection in #4 was significantly different: That all women are being punished worse than all men, rather than Eve, specifically, being punished worse than Adam, specifically. You address #3 by conflating Adam with humanity in general, and while I'd dispute whether it is ultimately just it at least attempts to address my objection #3. But that only applies if you can generalize it to all of humanity, where my objection in #4 was that the curse on Eve was extended to only half of humanity. So it still raises the question, why are women being punished/taught more harshly then men? Would you say that it is it because they are more innately wicked? More prone to turn away from God? (Deconversion statistics say otherwise.) Duller and thus needing harsher instruction to learn the same lesson? What do you think is up with this?

Alla: So you're saying that this wasn't a curse or a punishment? I'll grant it doesn't say that explicitly, but it's the only interpretation I can work out in context. The ground isn't just cursed, it's cursed for thy (Adam's) sake. The multiplication of sorrows upon Eve, the toil to farm on Adam (who had previously been able to serve as gardener of all of Eden with just himself and maybe Eve helping), none of this can be viewed as a positive and all of it is God's response to them eating the fruit. I'll grant that the Bible does not explicitly call these things curses, yet it doesn't say they aren't, and they can certainly be described as curses based solely on how they're presented: magical/miraculous afflictions bestowed upon people. I can switch to calling them "bestowed afflictions" if that's a sticking point for you. (Working off the end of KJV Genesis 3 here.) And unless it's NOT in response to their transgression for eating the fruit, how can this be anything but a punishment?

(11-12-2013 03:53 PM)alpha male Wrote: For the children, how is it even punishment?

They begin with nothing. They are given life. That's a gift, not a punishment, even though child-bearing hurts and we have to work for a living.

So it's a punishment when applied to Adam and Eve for their transgressions, but not when applied to their children for Adam and Eve's transgressions? Why would God apply that punishment to their children (who were so far blameless) as well as Adam and Eve, rather than just to Adam and Eve? Why go that extra mile?

The whole argument only truly fails when first presupposing Omni-ness (I believe omnibenevolence may be optional here).

Why make a flawed being that needs to go through suffering to acquire knowledge? If I were to create such a being I would be criticised as masochistic, especially if the only reason I created such a being was for my own personal glory.

Why not simply create a being that already knows right from wrong...unless you want to create a being who is ignorant so they will never divine your true intentions...which could only be the work of a nefarious mind, right? How smart do you want your robot army to be? Smart enough to make decisions on the fly on the battlefield, but not smart enough to know you are sending them to their doom.

The deity described in the bible sounds to me suspiciously human.

It all falls apart with Omni. Then it just becomes God's Magic Finger Puppet Show.